My littlest one

Dear Little One,

We always thought we had our life planned out and we would have control over when we would have children.  Were we ever wrong.  You showed us that sometimes things happen outside of our plans.

We had just moved from Utah to Las Vegas, it was a huge move for us.  Dad had just started a new job teaching High School and I was adjusting to staying at home with your brothers after always working.  Your little brother was only 6 months old when we found out we were pregnant with you, and boy were we ever surprised!  We were scared, actually I was terrified of having two babies so close in age.  After several days of crying I came to the realization that we could do hard things and everything would be ok.  For weeks I prepared myself to be a mother of 3 and to see you on the little ultrasound.  We had to wait longer for an appointment than expected but with 12 weeks approaching in late October I wasn’t worried since nothing seemed to be going wrong. On November 3rd, however, we ended up feeling those very real feelings of something is so very wrong.  We were only two days away from our first appointment but we would never get to see you wiggling inside.  After an ER visit that left more questions than answers, we went two days later to what was suppose to be our first time seeing you.  We were told that there was no longer, if ever, a baby.  These words were so hard to hear! Had I wished for this?  Was there something I had done?  What was wrong with me?  

In 12 short weeks I had come to love this baby inside but in under 5 minutes it was all taken away.  The happiness turned to sadness, the smiles to tears.  I was devastated, lost, broken.  How could this be happening to me, to us? Your brothers were so excited to meet you how could I go home and disappoint a 3 year old.  Days of sorrow turned into weeks, all I wanted to do was stay in bed and cry.  I couldn’t just let sorrow and grief keep me in bed, people needed me, my children needed me.  Having to pull myself out of bed every morning knowing that I had had a miscarriage was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.  

You have made me a stronger mother, wife and woman.  I will always know that for some reason you were needed elsewhere.  The days do get easier but the grief sometimes takes over.  On the bad days I try to think of you sitting in Heaven watching over me.  Oh how I wish I could have held you in my arms to smell your sweet little baby smell but I will just have to wait for now and know that you are where you are meant to be.

It has been almost a year now and I still cry over the loss of you.  No one knows why I will sometimes break down in tears or just go silent but in those moments is when I miss you the most and I just am thinking of you.  We are getting by but will never forget the impact you had on our lives.  We hope that you are enjoying your friends and family that I hope and imagine surround you. Always remember that I love you and look forward with great anticipation to the day I get to see you and hold you in my arms.

Love,

Mom

Living with Kids in Las Vegas!

Have you ever gone to Las Vegas, NV with your kids and wondered what to do with them in this adult monopolized city?  Well we recently moved here, and we have a 3 year old and almost 1 year old, and I was wondering the same things so I am here to give you the list of things that I have found to do with kids.  This is my list of free things, I'll make a list of other things to do in a later post.  Unfortunately there aren't too many free things that I have found to do...yet, the search continues.

Free!!!!

Story time 
Local libraries have story time almost every day of the week!  They have different age ranges but my favorite one to go to is the one for 0-5 year olds that usually is on Tuesdays. They tell about one story and dance and sing songs.  Each one usually lasts about 30min.  Go here to check out times and libraries near you!

Clark County Wetlands Park
I recently heard from a friend about going to the wetlands.  I was shocked to hear that there was such a place in Vegas!  We had to check this out so we went yesterday with a friend that also has a 3 year old.  It was fantastic!  They have different length walks that make it easy to accommodate which ever age child you have.  It has some trails that are dirt and some that are sidewalks. The dirt paths are really maintained and even my little umbrella stroller did really well on them.  We decided that we would go on the outer path around, in hinds site that probably wasn't the best idea for 2 3 year olds.  The boys were tired of walking about 1/2 way through and it was pretty warm too so they were hot and tired, yikes!  We did end up seeing a lizard which got them more excited.  If I were to do it again I think we will go in the early morning (they open at 9am pst) so we can see more animals.
Make sure you go inside the visitors center they have an explore center for kids and most of it was right at their level which was awesome! You can also check out a backpack that has binoculars and other fun stuff in it to help your little explorer have more fun. We didn't do this because my friend and I already had our hands full with 2 babies and our toddlers.  Make sure to grab a map of the trails also, what kid doesn't love maps?! Our boys were enjoying looking at the map but had to share because we had only grabbed one, so if taking multiple toddlers, grab one for everyone!  There is so much to see there it might be fun to split up the trails so you have some new things to see every time you go.  Remember that you are in the desert and you need to have water (plenty of water! I took my camelpak and drained it!), wear sunscreen and even take a hat.
To find out more about what you can expect go here.

Parks
Parks are the best source of entertainment for kids.  Who doesn't love spending time out at the park?!  My kids love the park, from the slides to the swings to the splash pads, they love it!  I have done some adventuring to different parks over the several months we have lived here. (We moved from Utah so being able to play at the park during the "winter" was fun) There usually isn't a bad time to go to the park here, except when it's windy, so we try to go at least once a week to the park.  I live on the west side of town so this list will mostly be for that side, sorry east siders! If you have a favorite park leave me a comment and I will go explore near you!
   Paseos Park- This park is awesome! It has a splash pad on during the summer, a very clean and well maintained sand box, play ground equipment that is good for ages 1-10 years old, and plenty of field and trails to play and walk on! This is honestly my favorite park because of all of it's options of play for the kids. We always take several buckets and shovels so that we can share our toys with the other kids there.  It's usually got several kids there with their moms or nannies.  There are plenty of picnic tables so take snacks or a sack lunch with you.
  The Hills Park- This park was recently re-done which makes it super nice and pretty clean.  They have swings to play on and a pretty cool playground.  Do be aware that this park is on a hill and kind of close to a street so there are multiple dimensions that may make it harder for you to see the kids all the time.  This park sits between an elementary school and middle school so parking is kind of hard but somehow being between schools makes me feel like it is safer.  The play equipment is very accessible for children of all ages and capabilities.  It has a wide stair case that winds up the middle to get to the slides and also a bridge at the top to get to the upper side of the park.  The slides are really fast, even for adults haha, but that is what makes them fun.
  Pueblo Park- This park is kind of tricky to find but it's fun once you figure out how to get there.  It's on the corner of buffalo and lake mead, if you try to GPS it it will send you to some gated community, so just remember that it is just west of Buffalo on Lake mead.  This park has a nice sized field to play in and plenty of sidewalk for the kids to ride their bikes.  The playground is decent, not the best but the kids seem to like it.  I'm kind of critical when it comes to parks.  
  Kellog Zaher Soccer Complex- This is a Soccer Complex that has at least 3 different play grounds within it.  The main largest one is quite fun and has plenty of swings.  The play equipment is good and keeps the kids climbing and running a lot.  It is handicap accessible which also means adult accessible.  This playground also has lights which means you can play there later, however the later it gets the more people are there.  There are soccer games almost every day so try going earlier if you want to avoid crowds, or stay later and enjoy some soccer.
  Ansan Sister City Park- This park is another hidden gem found in a neighborhood by a middle school.  We found this when we went for our Caucus.  It's got a big kid playground and a little kid playground which was awesome, both my kids had a place to play.  It also has 4 swings, which is far too little in my opinion! The grassy areas aren't really that convenient  to see the kids because the playground is built up, which is kind of weird.  Also leave the balls home if you don't want to be chasing them down hill all day.  Overall a good park for kids of all ages.
  The Container Park-  This is the downtown container park, which is down near Fremont Street.  It is a small shopping area with local boutiques and a large play structure for the kids, so it's a win win.  The play area is fully fenced in and even monitored by an employee there.  The structure is something close to a tree house made out of storage containers.  It has slides and different areas to climb too.  It even has a gem scavenger hunt you can go on.  There is also spray misters for the months that it is really HOT! It's a lifesaver!  Outside of the gated area there is a small "grassy" area in front of the stage where kids can play with the oversized legos and some blue foam building blocks.  Beware that there is a toy store right by the "grassy" area.  This is good for older kids not so much babies, there are usually a lot of people around due to it's proximity to Fremont Street.  I almost forgot to mention that parking does cost about $2/hour for street parking, yay for the city...humph.
  Tivoli Village- This is another park within a shopping center.  This little park is on the north end of the center but is fully gated in.  It is really nice for little kids, I think for kids over probably 8 they may not enjoy it too much.  My baby loves being able to climb it, SCARY! It's not that it's above his capabilities I just get nervous with the openings at the top of play structures.  They also have picnic tables and a "grassy" area that is big enough that  I've seen kids play small games of soccer on it. Parking is free here (YAY) sometimes you can get lucky and find on street parking but you may have better luck parking downstairs in the parking garage, also keeps your car cooler in the hotter months.
  Aliante Nature Discovery Park- This park is gated in and has a lot of place to play.  It has dinosaur skulls and a fossil pit to dig in so bring your excavating equipment, a.k.a. bucket and shovel.  It also has a really tall play structure that says its for older kids but my 3 year old handles it just fine.  It has 2 baby swings for the littles and a smaller play structure as well.  During the hotter months there is also a splash pad on so be prepared for them to get wet! On the outside of the fence there are ponds that geese and ducks are usually all over, and well the pigeons join in too.  There is no feeding the birds so don't get your kids hopes up too much for that.
  Craig Ranch- This park has miles of play and field to explore.  There are at least 3 different play grounds, that I've seen, I've been twice.  It is kind of hard to keep track of the kids if you have multiple but is really open so if you have good vision maybe it would be easier ;) Every play area has a different age range so you should be able to find something to do with any range of ages.  There are play structures, climbing nets, slides and swings oh and even a sandbox with a large lizard in the middle.  Really this park has just about anything any kid would want to play on!  I even think there is a skate/bike park at the entrance which would be cool for the teens.

Anderson Farm Tour
This little tour is kind of fun for the kids to see how the milk they drink gets processed and into the containers.  However it was a disappointment to this country girl that they don't have any cows on site.  It is more suitable for older children but I took my 3 year old and he enjoyed it, may have been that they gave him ice cream at the end. Anyways, you do need an appointment to go (I went with a mom's group) but it sounds pretty easy to set up.  If you know this is something your child would enjoy try calling when you know you will have free time so you can schedule this in.  
Go here to get more information on scheduling a tour.

I hope that this list gives you a good start to enjoying the area on the cheaper and kid friendly side of things.  I will post later on the other things I have found to do but for now my children are beckoning.

Car Seats?

Lately I've had a few friends ask me about what kind of things I looked for in a car seat and also I hear a lot of new or expecting mothers talking about car seats.  I don't blame anyone for being confused about what car seat to buy, I mean when I was in the market to buy both the car seats I've purchased I was totally lost!  I consulted other mothers that I trusted and now I'm a mother in the know (I don't have a tun of knowledge but some).
Living in a small town where the only place to buy a car seat is Wal-Mart, and they only have 3 or 4 options per type of car seats it can be very very difficult to know what you like and know where to find what you'll like.  I started by looking at those options at the Wal-Mart and not liking any of those options I went to the trusty old internet.  When I was looking for an infant carrier I knew I didn't want a handle that was one option of carrying and that I had to constantly re-thread the straps (babies grow super fast!).  The search was on for the best car seat for me, I kept an eye out online as well as the grocery store (I did this to see how well mother's did with different types of car seats).  I found a car seat that I thought I would love, it was the Babytrend car seat with the triangle car seat.  I made a daring leap of faith and ordered it, yes I did end up paying a lot more than the basic car seat that could be found at our local Wal-Mart, but it was totally worth it!  When it came time to use it it was the best car seat I've ever used, I hadn't used a lot but from babysitting experience I had used a few.  This car seat you never have to re-thread the straps (except for cleaning), you can hold the handle in several comfortable different options and it doesn't weigh a lot.  Look for a good car seat for you, not your neighbor, not me but you!  You're going to be carrying that thing for at least 6 months so you might as well get what you want.  My baby got to the point where it was uncomfortable to carry him in the carrier by 6 months and although he hadn't reached the weight limit but was quickly approaching the height so once again we were in the market for yet another car seat.
Now the question became how many car seats did we want to buy, I don't know about you all but I did not want to buy 3 or 4 more car seats so I knew I wanted to get a car seat that would grow with my child all the way from rear facing to booster.  The search was on, I looked once again at our local Wal-Mart only to be disappointed in my options once again so back the the internet I went....I still didn't know a good brand to trust so I talked with another mother to see what she liked and then took her advice mixed it with what I was looking for and searched some more.  Once again I wanted a easy to install car seat, light weight (I found one that weighed 33lbs!) and adjustable straps.  I found what I wanted and it wasn't even an arm and a leg to buy which I was excited about.  So I got the Alpha Omega Safety 1st car seat, I have a love hate relationship with this car seat right now.  The love is that it is going to last until the young one is out of a car seat, adjustable straps, cup holder (for when he's older) and good padding.  The hate is that it is not really easy to install rear facing, takes up a lot of space in the back seat with how far it has to be reclined in the rear facing position and it is really wide if you put the arm rests down.  I'm hoping that installation will become easier when it's front facing (we rotate cars a lot so we move the car seat a lot).  So my advice for buying a car seat for the older babes is buy what works for you.  If a convertible car seat won't fit in the back seat of your car then you will probably need to buy more car seats will be necessary, I drive a small SUV and the seat we got barely fits so make sure to look at dimensions of the car seat before you buy!!!
Anyway you look at buying car seats and what ever kind of car seat you buy just get what will keep your precious little one safe and not brake the bank.

Babyless Vacation

About two weeks ago the husband and I went on a vacation for our anniversary and decided not to take the baby along with.  It was the first time we had ever left him over night, but man was I ready to have a baby free weekend.  We went to Las Vegas, NV and I should clarify that we drove with the baby since our wonderful babysitter lived in Las Vegas.  This, I believe, helped tremendously in the separation between me and my baby, I knew that if I missed him too much I could just drive over to my sister in laws and see him.  I have to say this made the anxiety level of the vacation very low although I still had my worries.
I never felt like I was neglecting him, because I knew I could trust the person I left him with and if anything were to happen she would call me.  While we were there I would occasionally text her to see how he was doing because he is notorious for having melt downs, which always makes me feel bad for the person watching him.  He was always doing well and she always reassured us that he was fine.
I think it helped not to always be thinking of him because we were constantly doing something fun.  There was very little down time to sit and worry.  I planned it this way because the second I sit down I instantly worry about every little thing.
So my advice to all you readers is if you have a small child and your concerned about leaving them for the first time find someone you really trust to watch them and if possible within driving distance of where you are just in case you just have to see them.  Also plan to occupy your time so you don't constantly think of how much you miss your baby.  Just enjoy your vacation and know that your baby is in good hands!

Watermelon!

When I was pregnant I craved watermelon so much!  I could eat an entire watermelon by myself in a matter of hours.  Since I always wanted watermelon and we never knew how to correctly choose a watermelon we made up our own method to choosing a good one.  So this sounds crazy and probably looks even crazier but we would find a watermelon that looked pretty symmetrical and then we'd find a good long stretch in the aisle and roll it.  Yes we put it on the ground and rolled it around to see if it would roll straight.  It actually worked too!  We got so many better watermelons out of this method then the normal taping on it for the hollow sound, psh that never worked.
So this is my advice in choosing a watermelon, have a little fun and play with your fruit in the store.

Schedules

So many parents are so set on having their baby on a schedule by 2 months, but I feel like the baby will find their own schedule.  The only thing we ever scheduled was that our baby would get a bath every night.  Yes we give our child a bath every night because he is so "chunky" that we need to make sure we get all the crud out of his rolls.  He has set his own schedule which is awesome, I like that we are following what his body does naturally, that way we aren't constantly fighting him for naps or bed time.  He does get everything within his day as a baby on a schedule it just means we're more flexible and aren't restricted to home to keep his schedule.  Don't get me wrong I do like to be at home just because we have everything we will need right at our finger tips and with a baby you can never ever perfectly plan for every situation no matter how hard you try, we are always wishing we had something when we aren't home.
I would go crazy if I followed a schedule that I planned, I tried it for 2-3 weeks and was just about having a nervous breakdown.  Now I realize that not everyone has the opportunity to stay home with their children and so there needs to be some type of routine to make the day flow easier but honestly from my 7 months of experience I feel like it's better to be flexible and adjust to what the baby wants instead of wanting the baby to adjust to what we want.
I know we are anything from perfect and we could probably fix certain areas of our child rearing but we are doing the best we can, I mean we've never done this before so we're just doing what we think is best.  Honestly that's exactly what everyone should do, just do what you think is best and try to ignore other people's opinions on how to raise your children, including your parents sometimes (mother doesn't always know best).  The key to good parenting in my opinion is to enjoy your children every day.

Diapers, Diapers, Diapers

If your a mother or any parent or caregiver you know that diapers are the most used item in a babies life.  You would think someone would find a way to make it cheaper but in reality they seem to be making them more expensive.  It has been my husband and mine's goal to find the cheapest diapers possible.  We have price compared at Walmart, Diapers.com, and Smith's come to find out online is cheaper than going to the store to buy them.  The reason they are cheaper is that you can buy more in bulk and if you spend enough then you can receive free shipping which makes it even better.  We have found diapers as cheap as 15 cents a diaper!  This is my advice, look at the price per diaper and not the amount of diapers in a package or the overall price.
We recently found these white cloud diapers (at Walmart), unknowingly that they were premium diapers, they were 15 cents a diaper.  I didn't even know what a premium diaper was until they got here, but oh my goodness they mean premium when they say premium.  These diapers are so soft it's incredible!  Also they are super absorbent and keep your baby dry.  Now I'm starting to sound like an advertisement for these diapers but they are so amazing I thought I'd share my awesome affordable find with those of you out there reading this.
Changing diapers has got to be one of the things I like the least but luckily our baby doesn't seem to mind at all, in fact he prefers to have the diaper off and be naked, and oh my he is so cute when he's naked.
No matter what kind of diapers you like or your baby likes there is always a way to find them cheaper, but search online first.  The store charges more than you should spend willingly and we are all trying to save money these days so save the $$ and get nice cheap diapers.